Intuition

[libertango]

This here Macintosh runs an operating system officially known as Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Here's my question: When you read that line, did you pronounce it to yourself as "O-S-X" (that is, each letter individually), or "O-S-Ten"?

Turns out this is much like "sci-fi" vs "SF." Hoi polloi pronounce it "O-S-X"; cognoscenti, "O-S-Ten."

My point? Well, just like the company that sells software they claim can accurately predict trends -- like, whether one is a terrorist -- but still isn't able to manage to accurately predict how many will park at their building every day... Well, how much does it say about one's ability to make interfaces that are "intuitive" when one has to constantly correct the pronunciation the unfamiliar public intuitively applies to your product? You can't get something as simple as text on a page right, but you believe you get something as complex as computer screens right?

Comments

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

(I tend to think of it as "X", just because I like the sound of that better than "ten," which seems so pedestrian.)

[(Anonymous)]

On the other hand, for those who have been with Apple for some time, and have come through OS 6, OS 7, etc. it's not quite such a leap to say "O S ten." And if they had written it OS 10, people might be saying "OS one oh," so they kind of couldn't win.

If one hadn't been using Windows all along, I wonder what one would think of, say, Windows ME? "Windows Meee"?

I do hear what you're saying about OS X, but just looking at it from another POV.